Report: Tyrese Maxey, Jaylen Brown, and Joel Embiid are actively communicating with LeBron James to get him to Philly

ESPN reported on Tuesday that Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid, and Jaylen Brown have all been in communication with LeBron James as the Sixers continue their pursuit to land him in free agency.

ESPN says Maxey is leading the charge as a fellow Klutch Sports client who has trained with James in the offseason for years and has referred to the 41-year-old as a “big brother” in the past.

Joel Embiid, who teamed with LeBron James to win gold at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, has been in contact. Jaylen Brown, who received an unsolicited MVP endorsement from James back in February when LeBron said “this whole MVP thing, I don’t understand why his name is not getting talked about,” has been in contact.

All three of the Sixers’ best players are actively working together to recruit the greatest basketball player of all time to Philadelphia.

WILD RIGHT?!

But wait, I thought Tracy McGrady told us two days ago that Embiid and Brown haven’t even spoken since the trade?

I thought the narrative was that Joel Embiid was disengaged and uninterested and couldn’t be trusted to build relationships with his new teammates because he doesn’t participate in offseason media bullshit the way the talking heads on television want him to?

I thought the story was that LeBron James didn’t want to come to Philadelphia because of Embiid’s injury history and the risk of betting his final years on a player whose body can’t be relied upon for a full season?

Ahhh That’s Right… They Hate The Process

Really makes you wonder about the motivations behind every negative Embiid story that gets planted in the media cycle, assuming you weren’t already paying attention to the pattern that has been playing out for years.

Someone with no sources inside the Sixers’ organization says something negative about Embiid’s engagement, the internet runs with it for 48 hours, and then the actual reporting from people who cover the team reveals that the opposite is true and Embiid has been doing exactly what franchise players are supposed to do behind the scenes while the cameras aren’t watching.

They Hate the Process. They always have.

Every single time a story surfaces about Embiid being disconnected or uninterested or difficult to play with, the actual reporting that follows tells a completely different story about a player who is working the phones, building relationships with his teammates, and doing everything within his power to bring the best possible talent to Philadelphia.

The Sixers’ Pitch Is Coming From Every Direction

The recruiting effort for LeBron isn’t just the players calling individually because the entire Sixers organization has been coordinating a full-court press that involves the front office, the ownership group, and the three best players on the roster all delivering the same message from different angles.

Bob Myers, the president of Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment, went on Rich Paul’s podcast and told the audience “if it’s about winning, let’s talk about this team, because you can win here in Philadelphia,” which is the most direct pitch an ownership-level executive can make without literally flying to LeBron’s house with a contract in hand.

Gansey told The Athletic “we’ve had conversations with Rich really since the Jaylen trade, LeBron and his camp have kept quiet and there has been speculation for different teams, but we’d obviously love to have LeBron, I respect the heck out of him, in my opinion he’s the best player of all time,” which is the Sixers’ president of basketball operations publicly declaring that the franchise views LeBron James as the greatest player in basketball history and wants him on the roster.

Gansey was an executive with the Cavs during LeBron’s second stint in Cleveland and competed against James when they were both high school players in Northeast Ohio, so the personal relationship between the two adds a layer to the recruiting pitch that goes beyond basketball and into the territory of a shared history that LeBron might find meaningful when making a decision about where to spend the final chapter of his career.

Saquon Barkley pitched LeBron at a youth football camp. Mike Trout pitched LeBron at All-Star Media Day. Rich Paul said “everything changed” about the Sixers on his podcast. Myers went on that same podcast and made the case for winning in Philadelphia.

Gansey told The Athletic he’s been in contact with Paul since the Brown trade. And now Maxey, Embiid, and Brown are all personally communicating with James about coming to Philadelphia to form a core that would be the most talented starting five in the Eastern Conference by a significant margin.

The Sixers are throwing everything they have at LeBron James and the pitch is coming from every conceivable direction, from the ownership to the front office to the players to the Philadelphia sports community at large, because the organization understands that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to add the greatest player who ever lived to a roster that already has a 25-year-old All-Star point guard, a former Finals MVP wing, a former league MVP center, and one of the most exciting young players in the league in Edgecombe.

VJ is in the LeBron James mix too btw…

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LeBron’s Quote About Philadelphia Fans Tells You He’s Already Leaning This Way

LeBron said last December after scoring 29 points at Wells Fargo Center that “one thing you know about Philly fans, they don’t care about anybody besides their home teams and I respect and I love that” and that “to be able to have an appreciation for the City of Brotherly Love and for me to go out and still play the game that I love and them respect it, it’s pretty cool,” which is the kind of unprompted appreciation for a city’s sports culture that players don’t typically express about road venues unless the experience genuinely moved them in some way.

LeBron has played in Philadelphia for 23 years across his career, mostly during his Eastern Conference years with Cleveland and Miami, and the fact that he’s been paying attention to the energy at Wells Fargo Center long enough to form a genuine appreciation for the fanbase tells you Philadelphia has been on his radar as a destination for longer than the current free agency period.

Players don’t randomly compliment opposing fan bases in postgame press conferences unless the environment made an impression, and LeBron James specifically noting that Philly fans “don’t care about anybody besides their home teams” and that he respects and loves that about the city is the kind of observation that aligns perfectly with what Barkley said about LeBron being “remembered forever” if he brings a championship to Philadelphia.

The Sixers, Cavaliers, and Heat Are the Final Three

ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that the Sixers remain one of the top potential destinations for James alongside the Cavaliers and the Heat, which means the decision has narrowed to three teams and Philadelphia is firmly in the conversation heading into a week where LeBron will be in New York for public appearances including Fanatics Fest, the Time 100 gala where he’s being honored as “Athlete of the Century,” and a live taping of “The Shop” with Novak Djokovic.

The Cavaliers offer the homecoming narrative and the emotional pull of returning to Cleveland for a final chapter where LeBron finishes his career where it started. The Heat offer Giannis and Adebayo and the history of LeBron’s most successful years as a professional when he won two championships in Miami alongside Wade and Bosh. The Sixers offer the most talented roster of the three options with Maxey, Brown, Embiid, and Edgecombe surrounding LeBron with the kind of star power that none of the other destinations can match, plus a fanbase that would embrace him with the kind of intensity that only Philadelphia provides.

The basketball case for Philadelphia is stronger than Cleveland or Miami because the roster is deeper, the young talent is better, and the path to a championship in the Eastern Conference is clearer with Brown, Maxey, and Embiid alongside LeBron than with whatever the Cavaliers or Heat are putting around him. Myers said “if it’s about winning, let’s talk about this team” and the man is right because the Sixers’ roster with LeBron is the most talented starting five in the East and potentially the most talented starting five in the entire NBA depending on Embiid’s health.

Of Course Joel Embiid Is Working Behind the Scenes

Joel Embiid doesn’t hold press conferences in July to announce that he’s texting LeBron James because Embiid has never been the player who performs his competitiveness for the cameras the way the media wants him to.

The man won an Olympic gold medal with LeBron James in Paris, has a relationship with James that was built through that experience, and is now using that relationship to recruit the greatest player in basketball history to play alongside him in Philadelphia without announcing it to the world every step of the way.

Tracy McGrady said Embiid and Brown haven’t spoken.

The Sixers’ president said they have. ESPN is now reporting that Embiid, Brown, and Maxey are all actively communicating with LeBron James about coming to Philadelphia. The pattern is the same one it’s always been with Embiid, which is that the media creates a narrative about his disengagement based on nothing, the actual reporting reveals the opposite, and the people who ran with the negative story move on to the next manufactured controversy without ever acknowledging they were wrong about the last one.

Embiid has been working behind the scenes with Maxey and Brown to recruit LeBron James because that’s what franchise players do when a generational opportunity presents itself, and the fact that the public didn’t know about it until ESPN reported it on Tuesday doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening.

It just means Embiid doesn’t feel the need to tweet about every phone call he makes because the man understands that the recruiting process works better in private than it does on social media, which is a concept that apparently confuses the media personalities who need everything to happen publicly in order to believe it’s happening at all.

They hate the Process. They always have and Embiid keeps proving them wrong every time the actual information catches up to the speculation.

LeBron James to Philly. Maxey is leading the charge. Embiid and Brown are in. The roster is ready. The city is ready. Make the decision, LeBron, because the Sixers have put together the most compelling pitch in the NBA and the only thing left is for the greatest player of all time to say yes.

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